1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of weighing and taking out a powdered dye used for dye adjusting purposes in case of dyeing textile products and synthetic resin products, etc. and an apparatus suitable for carrying out the method, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for weighing and taking out a powdered dye efficiently to thereby enable the error or deviation from a required quantity of a powdered dye to be minimized.
2. Description of the Prior Art
To conduct dyeing treatments satisfactorily, it is required basically to adjust a dye liquor containing a proper required quantity of a dye. In case the dye is powdery, it is not always easy to weigh and take out a required quantity of the powdered dye accurately.
As a conventional method of weighing and taking out a powdered dye stored in a container, there has so far been carried out to take out the dye in an approximately required quantity by means of a measuring means such as a measuring cup, or by flowing it out from the lower part of the container and compensating for the surplus or the deficiency of the dye by means of an weighing instrument such as an electronic weigher, or alternatively to dilute the powdered dye, taken out by the same procedure as mentioned above in a quantity slightly more than the required amount, with a liquid such as, for example, water so as to prepare a dye liquor having a known dye concentration, and then taking the dye liquor in a quantity which contains the proper required quantity of the powdered dye out of the prepared dye liquor.
Out of the above-mentioned two conventional methods of weighing and taking out powdered dye, the former method wherein a dye is taken out in powdery state has been conducted commonly in laboratories. However, since this method is troublesome in weighing and compensating the surplus or the deficiency and is therefore inefficient for industrial application, it has been carried out generally to control the quantity of a powdered dye flowing out from a container by means of a fixed quantity delivery means in an error range of .+-.0.5-0.25 gr.. In case of dyeing, if the quantity of a powdered dye contained in a dye liquor has an error or deviation of 1% or more from a required quantity, then there occurs a visually different result of dyeing. Therefore, the above-mentioned former method of taking out a powdered dye has been used in case of large lot dyeing using a dye liquor containing a required quantity of more than 50 gr. of the dye in which the dye can be weighed and taken out at a high accuracy, but in case of small lot dyeing using a dye liquor containing a required quantity of less than 50 gr. of the dye has required troublesome reweighing and compensation.
Whilst, the latter method wherein a powdered dye is weighed and taken out in the form of a diluted solution which contains a required quantity of the dye provides a highly accurate weighing depending on the degree of dilution. According to this method, however, the quantity of the diluted solution increases with an increase in the required quantity of the dye thus posing problems on installation and operations, and also in case a large quantity of the dye liquor is kept in custody, there is a possibility of aging of the dye liquor. Therefore, the latter method is used only for trial dyeing, sample dyeing and small-lot dyeing, etc. wherein a small quantity of a dye is taken out and used.